Exceptional Student Education: Definition, Resources, and Support
Exceptional Student Education (ESE), often referred to as special education, is a multifaceted system designed to address the unique learning needs of students with disabilities. It encompasses a wide range of services, programs, and supports aimed at fostering their academic, social, and emotional growth. This article provides an in-depth exploration of ESE, its legal foundations, key components, and available resources, with the goal of promoting a comprehensive understanding of this critical aspect of education.
Introduction to Exceptional Student Education
Special education is the process by which students with special needs receive education by addressing their differences while integrating them as much as possible into the typical educational environment of their peers. Success, measured as self-sufficiency, academic achievement, and future contributions to the community, may not be achieved if students with special needs do not receive this additional help. In the United States and many other countries, children with special educational needs are entitled by law to receive services and accommodations to help them perform to the best of their abilities and reach their academic potential.
Special needs can include learning disabilities, speech and language impairments, autism spectrum disorders, cognitive impairments, emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities like cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophies, sensory impairments like vision or hearing, chronic medical illnesses, and any condition that affects optimal education. Whenever possible, the needs of these students should be met in the same environment where other peers learn. Different classroom placements can be selected for their education only when progress is lacking in this mainstream setting. This new setting may include fewer students in the classroom, more teachers, or a higher level of support. Moving a child from the typical classroom or educational setting to a specially structured one is gradual.
The Legal Foundation: IDEA and FAPE
Beginning in 1975, the All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142), and later evolving into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,1990), No Child Left Behind, and most recently, the IDEA Improvement Act 2004, federal laws in the United States have ruled that public schools must provide free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to students with disabilities. Any person between 3 and 21 years of age suspected of having a disability is entitled to a comprehensive, interprofessional evaluation and, if eligible, to an individualized learning plan and monitoring over time, showing the achievement of adequate progress.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) is a Federal Law that requires public school districts to identify children with disabilities and provide them with an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment possible. IDEA ensures that children with disabilities are educated with nondisabled children, to the maximum extent appropriate.
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Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)
Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) is the educational right of students with disabilities to be educated at public expense and make adequate progress.
Key Components of Special Education
The process of providing educational interventions tailored to students' individual needs consists of multiple steps. The process begins with the identification of student's academic needs. Educators must recognize students who struggle and those whose needs are unmet. After identifying a struggling student, the family must consent to the evaluation. These students then receive an RTI. A personalized set of interventions is designed and implemented in this part of the process. The response to these interventions is monitored over a predetermined period. No further evaluation is necessary if the student can catch up with the rest of the class. However, if there is no progress, the school assessment team does an interprofessional evaluation.
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Response to Intervention (RTI) involves initial interventions used by general education teachers in a regular classroom to help struggling students who are falling behind. This process is implemented and monitored to see how much the student benefits from it before more formal evaluations that may lead to an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
Individualized Education Program (IEP)
As a result of the review, a decision be made if the student has needs that make them eligible for an IEP. The student who meets the criteria to qualify is suitable for the services. The degree of delays or educational needs that make students suitable for services varies by state and local legislation. The student's individual needs, how to address these weaknesses, how to monitor progress, and clear goals for achievement over time are put together into a document called the IEP. This process includes procedural safeguards that ensure the rights of the children and their families and due process if these services are not provided.
Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a legally binding document by which the public school system, after an interprofessional evaluation, identifies a student's educational needs, the intervention that helps achieve this goal, and the method for monitoring progress.
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Parental Involvement in the IEP Process
Parents must be given an opportunity to participate in meetings concerning the “IEP” and any educational placement for their child. Parents have a number of important roles in the IEP process. Parents bring firsthand knowledge about the strengths of their child and their concerns for enhancing their child’s education. The parents can provide information about day-to-day life, including their child’s particular ways of accomplishing tasks in different settings, and their perspective on the needs of their child. The parents can provide information on their child’s current progress in school as well as the needs to be addressed in the “IEP” meeting.
Components of the IEP
The IEP must also contain a statement of the special education and related services and supplementary aids and services to be provided to the child, or on behalf of the child. The IEP must also include an explanation of the extent, if any, to which the child will not participate with nondisabled children in the regular class and in other school settings and activities. IDEA requires that students with disabilities take part in state or districtwide assessments. The IEP team must decide if the student needs accommodations in testing or another type of assessment entirely. When will the child begin to receive services? Where? How often? How long will a “session” last? Beginning at least one year before the student reaches the age of majority, the IEP must include a statement that the student has been told about the rights (if any) that will transfer to him or her at age of majority.
The IEP only addresses those educational needs resulting from the child’s disability. If a child needs special education support throughout the school day, for all activities, the IEP will cover all these needs. If the child doesn’t need special education support in one or more areas (for example, physical education, music, or science), then the IEP will not include these subjects.
Special Education Defined in the IEP
It’s helpful to see IDEA’s full requirement for specifying a child’s special education in his or her IEP. In its entirety, this provision is the heart and soul, meat and potatoes, bricks and mortar (choose your analogy!) of the IEP. When taken off paper and operationalized in school, it becomes the education that a child with a disability receives. Special education is instruction that is specially designed to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability. This means education that is individually developed to address a specific child’s needs that result from his or her disability. Since each child is unique, it is difficult to give an overall example of special education. Some students may be working at the pre-kindergarten grade level, others at the first, second, or third grade level. There may be students whose special education focuses primarily on speech and language development, cognitive development, or needs related to a physical or learning disability.
Adaptations in Special Education
As part of designing the instruction to fit the needs of a specific child, adaptations may be made in the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction. As the provisions above show, adaptations can take many forms in response to the child’s needs; the field is replete with guidance on this critical part of special education.
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Modifications vs. Accommodations
Sometimes a student may need to have changes made in class work or routines because of his or her disability. Sometimes people get confused about what it means to have a modification and what it means to have an accommodation. Usually a modification means a change in what is being taught to or expected from the student. Making an assignment easier so the student is not doing the same level of work as other students is an example of a modification. An accommodation is a change that helps a student overcome or work around the disability. Allowing a student who has trouble writing to give his answers orally is an example of an accommodation. What is most important to know about modifications and accommodations is that both are meant to help a child to learn.
Special Education Settings
After an IEP is implemented and the additional educational support starts, the student's progress is followed over time. Extra help usually begins in the general classroom setting. After a period, if the student does not make adequate progress and further support is necessary, then the student is placed in a more structured educational environment. This educational setting can be in an inclusive or collaborative team classroom, where students with and without IEPs are educated together by a teacher in cooperation with a special education teacher, or smaller classrooms, sometimes called self-contained classes, where all the students have special needs. In some cases, adequate placement may be in a different school outside their home district.
Special education instruction can be provided in a number of settings, such as: in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings. Schools must ensure that a continuum of alternative placements is available to meet the needs of children with disabilities. This continuum must include the placements just mentioned (instruction in regular classes, special classes, special schools, home instruction, and instruction in hospitals and institutions). Special education instruction must be provided to students with disabilities in what is known as the least restrictive environment, or LRE.
Special Education for Preschool-Age Children
A similar process exists for preschool-age children. Preschool children, 3 to 5 years old, are provided with educational services by the Committee for Preschool Special Education, following an interprofessional evaluation determining their eligibility. Children younger than 3 years old receive services by Early Intervention, part C of the IDEA. Children with their families undergo evaluation by a comprehensive, interprofessional, and family-centered assessment. An Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) then be developed.
Similarly, this plan includes educational goals. And it states how their educational needs be addressed. It also has ways to measure the child's progress and plans to transition the child to preschool services if the continuation of services is needed.
Related Services and Supplementary Aids
To help a child with a disability benefit from special education, he or she may also need extra help in one area or another, such as speaking or moving. This additional help is called related services. Supplementary aids and services are intended to improve children’s access to learning and their participation across the spectrum of academic, extracurricular, and nonacademic activities and settings. Also part of the IEP is identifying the program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided.
Peer-Reviewed Research in Special Education
With the passage of the 2004 Amendments to IDEA, some new terms and concepts became part of the IEP process. One such is peer-reviewed research. “Peer-reviewed research” generally refers to research that is reviewed by qualified and independent reviewers to ensure that the quality of the information meets the standards of the field before the research is published. However, there is no single definition of “peer reviewed research”’ because the review process varies depending on the type of information to be reviewed. States, school districts, and school personnel must…select and use methods that research has shown to be effective, to the extent that methods based on peer-reviewed research are available. This does not mean that the service with the greatest body of research is the service necessarily required for a child to receive FAPE. Likewise, there is nothing in the Act to suggest that the failure of a public agency to provide services based on peer-reviewed research would automatically result in a denial of FAPE. The final decision about the special education and related services, and supplementary aids and services that are to be provided to a child must be made by the child’s IEP Team based on the child’s individual needs.
The Role of the Medical Provider
The medical provider has an indirect but essential role in supporting the education of their patients.
Clinical Significance
Early identification and proper remediation of developmental delays in young children and learning difficulties in older students have lifelong benefits. Students achieve higher academic levels and financial independence. Many studies have shown that students with unidentified educational needs experience negative labeling like being called lazy or dumb. They experience feelings of frustration and shame and can develop anxiety, poor self-esteem, a higher rate of substance abuse, school dropout, and juvenile delinquency.
Special education programs are put in place for those students who are mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally delayed. This "delay" aspect, categorized broadly as a developmental delay, signifies an aspect of the child's overall development (physical, cognitive, academic skills) that places them behind their peers. When a student has a medical diagnosis but is not eligible for special education, schools can make accommodations or adaptations to provide support under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). For example, if academically, they are at grade level but have a medical condition (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) that prevents them from performing to the best of their potential. Under this provision, there cannot be discrimination against people with disabilities, and equal opportunities must be available. Children performing above the expected and considered gifted and talented may need specialized teaching, but this is usually not included in special education. Gifted students are not eligible for an IEP.
Enhancing Healthcare Team Outcomes
Students with special educational needs due to medical conditions need optimal health care. Optimizing medical care for those students improve their educational outcomes. Routine assessment, long-term planning, and treatment are essential components of health care and education outcomes. Technology has become increasingly important in special needs students' health care and learning process. Various tools and devices became available to improve the function of impaired body systems like hearing, sensing, visualizing, vocalizing, ambulating, and writing or communicating. Learning, in general, has also made critical forward steps using technology. The availability of advanced audio-visual devices and learning objects, fast and highly efficient communication devices and routes, distant education concepts and tools, and the needed expertise gave a new meaning and set up new higher goals of education.
Resources and Support Systems
This discussion of special education as a term brings to mind how it is also a process, a system. IDEA may define the term and establish rigorous standards for its implementation, but how special education unfolds in schools is very much a state and local matter. Education is traditionally a state responsibility, with each state vested with the authority to determine its own policies within the parameters of federal requirements. The best place is to connect with the agency responsible in your state for overseeing special education in the state. That is most likely your state’s Department of Education-or Department of Special Education. Names will vary from state to state, of course. NASDSE, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education. Visit NASDSE and consult their “Meet the Directors” interactive map.
Polk County Public Schools
Polk County’s Exceptional Student Education Department serves more than 18,000 students from preschool through 22 years of age. Staff members work with students’ families and teachers to identify available services and programs to help these students succeed in school and in their lives beyond the classroom. The staff members of Polk County Public Schools consistently provide support to students with special needs by working collaboratively and providing effective communication.
SEDNET
SEDNET is a network of 19 regional projects that are comprised of the major child-serving agencies, community-based service providers, students, and their families.
Parent Rights
Section 1003.57(1)(b)1., Florida Statutes (F.S.), requires that district school boards submit to the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) proposed procedures for the provision of special instruction and services for exceptional students once every three years. As a parent, you are entitled to information about your rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These rights, or procedural safeguards, are intended to ensure that you have the opportunity to be a partner in the educational decisions made regarding your child. Rule 6A-6.03313, F.A.C.
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